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Review - Body - Richard Walker

Robert Winston's is the name you'll find splashed all over this stunning Dorling Kindersley book, but that's a little misleading (and I hope Professor Winston is a touch ashamed) - because he's only the "editorial consultant" on this book, contributing a couple of paragraphs of introduction and a watchful eye on proceedings - it was actually written by Richard Walker.

The premise is simple. Taking a voyage inside the body aided by a series of ultra-high resolution graphics, generated by a CGI company from actual MRI scans of the human body. The result is striking, and probably the best pictorial exploration of the body ever presented for a young audience.

As well as the CGI graphics there are plenty more illustrations in the beautifully drawn DK style, and some of the images have added value through clear overlays that allow the reader to superimpose (for example), air paths on the respiratory system or different areas on the brain, though this "interactive" option isn't used as widely as perhaps it could be.

Perhaps the best section is the first which takes each of seven systems from skeleton to endocrine and follows it through the body. We then have more detail on body parts broken down into sections - the head, the upper body and the lower body, each containing detailed information in the usual DK format of a double page spread on a range of sub-topics. For instance, in the upper body section there's a pair of pages on "arm and elbow" that shows the skeleton, a bigger image with muscles superimposed, detail of the kind of joint used in the elbow and a "did you know" box linking arms with mechanical devices like cranes and anglepoise lamps. The graphics are striking, though the intense red used for the muscles could perhaps have been toned down a little - it rather glares out the rest of the page's contents.

As a bonus, cleverly embedded in the front cover, there's a CD-ROM of 3D graphics of the body. This is a mixed blessing. What there is on the CD is very good, but it's only a taster - as it puts it "a variety of views of the body extracted from the full Primal Pictures 3D Body". So there's a full body (with or without muscles), head musculature, thorax, leg, hand and foot. Each is presented as an image that you can rotate on screen to see it from different directions (hence the "3D" part - it's not 3D in the sense of viewing it through 3D glasses). Clicking on different parts of the image brings up accompanying descriptive text. It's good, but frustrating, partly because the image isn't very big, and partly because it's such a small selection of the full goods. (You can see the full thing at Primal Pictures' website - but it does cost a massive £599, €875 or $1050.)

Body apparently supports the National Curriculum for Science at Key Stage 2 (UK), and it will obviously have strong appeal as a school book, but will also be of personal interest to younger readers with a keen interest in human biology. Unusually for a book that isn't really popular science we've decided to give this book a near-best four star rating. It's partly because of the stunning presentation, but also because, while it certainly can be used as a reference, it can also be read through end to end with some success. Oh and it's ringbound too, which makes a huge amount of sense with this sort of book you want to open flat.

Only in hardback.

Reviewed by Martin O'Brien

* Our age range recommendation is an estimated guide, but individual readers outside the range could still enjoy the book!

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